A mix of domestic and merchant houses in Bryggen, Norway. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

There is something pleasing and picturesque in the primitive, old-fashioned household ways of the Norwegian gentry. The family room is what we may fancy the hall to have been in an English manor house in Queen Elizabeth's days. The floor is sprinkled with fresh bright green leaves, which have a lively effect; everything is clean and shining; an eight-day clock stands in one corner, a cupboard in another; benches and straight-backed wooden chairs ranged round the room; and all the family occupations are going on, and exhibit curious and interesting contrasts of ancient manners with modern refinement, and even elegance.

The carding of wool or flax is going on in one corner; two or three spinning wheels are at work near the stove; and a young lady will get up from these old-fashioned occupations, take her guitar in the window-seat, and play and sing, or gallopade [yes, that's a word apparently] the length of the room with a sister, in a way that shows that these modern accomplishments have been as well taught as the more homely employments.

The breakfast is laid out on a tray, at one end of this room, which is usually spacious, occupying the breadth of the house, and lighted from both sides. People do not sit down to this meal, which consists of slices of bread and butter, smoked meat, sausages, dried fish, with the family tankard, generally of massive silver, full of ale, and with decanters of French and Norwegian brandy, of which the gentlemen take a glass at this repast. This is the breakfast of old times in England. The coffee is taken by itself an hour or two before, and, generally, in the bed-room.

While the gentlemen are walking about, conversing, and taking breakfast, the mistress is going in and out on her family affairs, servants enter for orders, neighbours drop in to hear or tell the news, the children are learning their catechism, or waltzing in the sunbeams in their own corner; and the whole has such a lively animated scene, without bustle or confusion; all is so nice and bright, and the manners of the people towards each other, in family intercourse, are so amiable, and with such a strain of good breeding, that the traveller who wishes to be acquainted with the domestic life of the Norwegians will find an hour very agreeable in the family-room.

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